I a Dell inspiron 1150 Laptop and use ghost 2003 in Windows XP Home on a 30gh hdd. It was partitioned 9755mb for OS and the rest for storage and ghost images. Yesterday while the machine was booting I picked it up to reposition it on a different desk and when I looked at the monitor it said something like cannot boot because...lahtdah. I then rebooted and again got this message... ntldr is missing. I then check it out with the hirens boot disk to find that somehow the drive letters had swapped over, i.e my "C" drive (OS) was now the "D" drive and visversa. I tried many things to fix but to no avail, so I first used Hirens to copy all my images to and ext drive and then reformatted.... installed windows .... repatitioned again... copied my images back to the storage partition... and then finallay used ghost to restore. Ghost did the job well, but unfortunately I still get the "ntldr is missing" error on reboot. I been using ghost now for 9 years with very little problem, but this has me stumped. Anyone have any clues?

I formated and partitioned using the new Hirens boot disk, and was then able to install windows using the CD. I then was able to loose the ntldr error. Then I istalled ghost and created a new image of the newly installed windows Home. Then I tried to restore a recent image on my ext drive and succeded, but still the ntldr error returned. I thought it would, but hoped it wouldnt. I then gave up on restoring past images and took half a day off to install all drivers and programs, and then copied what data I needed from the old image using Ghost Explorer (Wow what a life saver that is).

I know it was the drive changes that caused it, but just dont know how that could happen. I do remember sometime before all this happened, seeing that my disks were displayed as "Disk 1 and Disk 2" instead of "Disk 0 and Disk 1" like it should have been. But now all is showing correct.

Anyway, thanks guys for the help. guess I will just have to add that one to experience and forget trying to figure it out.

BTW... I have checked the option to be notified of replies.... but I got no notification of any reply...am I missing something?

BTW... I have checked the option to be notified of replies.... but I got no notification of any reply...am I missing something?

I've seen others mention problems with the *notification* part of the forum software--have never figured out what exactly goes wrong.

It would have been interesting to run a couple diagnostic programs to see what the status of the active partition was and what the boot.ini file was pointing to.

Have you tested to see if you restore an image of the new setup--does it restore and boot okay?

You could possible attempt to restore your *old* image file to see if the problem re-occurs. We could then see what those diagnostic tests reveal.

(I'm crossing my fingers that restoring the *new* image of the new setup would return you to where you are now!)

You might not want to take any chances--but if you had a spare HDD that you could put in temporarily, and keep you current *production* HDD safely set aside while testing--you could possibly trouble shoot and find out what was going wrong. But not everyone has a spare HDD for their laptop handy.

I do remember sometime before all this happened, seeing that my disks were displayed as "Disk 1 and Disk 2"

Where did you see that?

Not sure Brian. It mighjt even have been during the problem....but before the new format job. I think it was when I was messin with Boot disks and trying to delete patitions or such things concerning this problem. It might have been with PartMagic (on a boot disk) that showed these partions as 1 + 2. If you google "disk number changed" you will see I am not the only one this has happened.

Sorry if I messed up this post as I dont know how to quote or reply to individual posts.

Have you tested to see if you restore an image of the new setup--does it restore and boot okay?

No... I am a bit scared at this point as it may get the same error, and that would mean a new windows install again. I will do a bit more research on "repairing windows" to see if that might work. When I am fairly confident of sucess...i will do a ghost retore.NightOwl wrote on Aug 19th, 2012 at 11:46pm:

You could possible attempt to restore your *old* image file to see if the problem re-occurs.We could then see what those diagnostic tests reveal.(I'm crossing my fingers that restoring the *new* image of the new setup would return you to where you are now!)

Again...yes that would be a good test...but not confident just yet. I will bite the bullit in a week or two and ghost back to the new image, and if that works ok...then ghost back to the old image. Maybe the ntldr error is history now and because the disks are numbered correctly now, there wont be anymore problems. Maybe after a few more beers I might even try it today?

You might not want to take any chances--but if you had a spare HDD that you could put in temporarily, and keep you current *production* HDD safely set aside while testing--you could possibly trouble shoot and find out what was going wrong.But not everyone has a spare HDD for their laptop handy.

As a matter of fact, I am just now considering a new SSD for this old laptop now that prices are way down now. Can get a 64gb ssd for only $58 now. Although that would work ok, I prefer to find a way to piggyback a storage drive as well. This could be a month or so away...then I will have some more options as you say NightOwl.

Looks like I am getting the hang of this quoting now. I also might try using a different email address on my profile and see if that helps notify me of your posts. For the time being tho...I am just popping in here ewvery coupla days.

I used Shopbot to compare prices but I wanted an Intel 520 Series 120 GB SSD. My second choice would have been a Samsung 830. I was told to avoid OCZ as they have a reputation for developing problems.

I expect you have the original HD and you will notice a huge speed increase with a SSD. Get a SATA III SSD as even though your motherboard is SATA II you may as well get the latest technology and you may use the SSD later in another computer. I'm advised there is negligible subjective difference in speed between SATA II and SATA III motherboards. I have a SATA II motherboard.

Not sure Brian. It mighjt even have been during the problem....but before the new format job. I think it was when I was messin with Boot disks and trying to delete patitions or such things concerning this problem. It might have been with PartMagic (on a boot disk) that showed these partions as 1 + 2. If you google "disk number changed" you will see I am not the only one this has happened.

Well, for the record, this *disk number changed* may be a red herring! You need to make sure it's not just the program you are using--if you used more than one program. Some are programmed to start disk numbering at *zero* and others at *one*. So can not compare apples to oranges.

Now, if the numbering changed, and you were using only one program and saw that change in that program--then maybe it's significant.